In 1951, John Dudley, Harold and Frances Suggs, and Eleanor Darden Stewart led a student organized walkout of their all-black Adkin High School in Kinston, NC to demand better conditions at the school. On Saturday, September 24 they were among the first members of the public to visit the new National Museum of African American History and Culture.
Back in 1951, they came up with a list of demands including a proper gym, a vocational shop, more classrooms and a home economics area, and took them to a board of education meeting in Kinston. Despite the school board’s initial declaration of a lack of resources within 18 months the students got everything they asked for.
Adkin High School was a “Rosenwald school” built in 1928 for African American students with the help of philanthropist Julius Rosenwald who helped build many such schools across the South in the early 1900s. You can read more about the walkout here.
Visitors to the National Museum of African American History will have the opportunity to view desks from the Rosenwald Hope School in Pomaria, South Carolina.

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The Northwest Georgia News is reporting on the upcoming 92nd Anniversary Celebration of the Fairview School Symposium and Gala Weekend, November 11 and 12. The event benefits the Fairview-E.S. Brown School in Cave Spring near Rome, GA, which is one of four buildings that stood on a Rosenwald campus.
The highlight of the weekend is the screening of Rosenwald on November 12 at the Historic DeSoto Theatre.

There are places in this world that should not be forgotten.
A little one-room school building in Cave Spring is one such place. It may not boast any fancy architecture and it doesn’t have a long list of famous alumni. But at one time, this small building represented hope, education and a future for many African American children across several counties. . . . Much of its history has been lost, but the building remains an example of segregated education and the impact it had on the children and the surrounding communities at the time. -“Forever Fairview: Restoring and Preserving History,” by Severo Avila, Features Editor, Northwest Georgia News

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She remembers growing up with remnants of the black wealth created by Walker, who built an empire in the early 1900s selling hair scalp ointments and whose accomplishments will be on display at the Smithsonian’s new African American Museum of History and Culture, which opens Sept. 24.

“The china we ate on for special occasions belonged to Madam Walker,” says A’Lelia Bundles, Walker’s great-great-granddaughter and the author of the biography, “On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker.”

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